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6 Top Tips For Managing a Coworking Space

We recently brought you some best practices for working with others in coworking spaces. But there's another side to the coworking coin. In this post we offer advice for those involved in the management of such premises.

We have spoken to experienced coworking organizers to get their essential tips on how to offer a better coworking space. Those tips include how to pick the best layout, how to get people more engaged and how to nurture the community.

Whether you're thinking of starting a space, are already running a fledgling space or even if you're a seasoned manager, we think you'll find something useful here to take back to your coworking office. And, as always, add your tips in the comments below.

1. Be Selective With Members

A coworking space is as much about the people within it as the physical premises. Because of this, it's advisable to ensure that anyone joining the space is committed to the coworking concept, and will be a good fit.

"Do put people off if you have any doubt that they will embrace a coworking ethos. In the early days we had taken on a very large amount of risk with 6,500 feet of space and nobody to fill it. Probably the most important thing we did was to spend time with every new person and get to know them a little," says James McCarthy of Brighton, UK-based The Werks.

"Seeding the building with people who embraced the ideals of coworking made the community largely self managing, i.e., when they enter the space people get a sense of the culture and opt out if incompatible."

And stay vigilant with regular members to ensure that everyone is being respectful of the community.

"Similarly do garden the community," advises McCarthy. "We had a couple of very reliable, business-like businesses in The Werks who at first seemed the right fit, but soon started to undermine the sense of collaboration and shared values. Don't be afraid to politely and respectfully encourage people to move on if they are undermining the values."

2. Embrace Diversity Among Members

The nature of word-of-mouth marketing might mean your coworking space fills up with loosely connected folk from the same kind of industry. Although this will mean your members have a lot in common, and can enjoy collaboration opportunities, don't overlook the benefits that embracing a wide group of people from a variety of industries can offer.

"Do embrace a wider group of people that just geeks. We have found that the diversity of people who come through The Werks creates a richer culture," says McCarthy.

3. Encourage Members to Use Other Coworking Spaces

If a change is as good as a rest, then highlighting other local coworking spaces to your members might help them freshen up their work routine and make new contacts.

"Do encourage people to use different coworking spaces. One of the things we are quite interested in is the idea of flow. The higher the flow of people through the space, the more interesting opportunities are created," says McCarthy.

"When some friends started another coworking space in Brighton we actively looked for ways to encourage people to flow between then. It would be very easy to let cliques build up; we try hard to avoid this."

If there are no other nearby spaces that would suit this kind of flow, then consider creating coworking one-off days in a different part of your area to broaden your reach. Beth Charlesworth, who is involved in the running of Cardiff coworking space Indycube, organizes coworking events throughout the city which offer a day of working with others from a fresh location.

"I run a number of other coworking events, with plans to expand throughout the city. The more people talk about coworking the better in our opinion, and so far the results seem to prove that the more coworking opportunities there are, the more people come to our space too."

4. Design Your Space For Interaction

One of the main reasons people choose the coworking path is that they want to meet, network with and otherwise mingle with other human beings. Ensure your space has been designed so that you deliberately put people in the path of others.

"Design the space with interaction in mind. We made sure that we don't just have desks, we also offer a relaxed seating area filled with big comfy sofas and meeting rooms for private calls or meetings to take place in," says Charlesworth.

"A big factor for us was making sure we didn't look like your average open plan office space so we ensured local artists use the wall space as gallery hanging space."

MacCarthy concurs: "Do think about the space from an interaction perspective. With six floors in The Werks it would be really easy to just stick services and facilities on floors, but again this can create cliques on different floors as people would have little reason to move through the building. We purposely made one kitchen and it makes people move around the space and bump into each other."

5. Monitor How People Use the Space

You have, or will have, put tons of thought into the layout of your coworking space, but until it's populated you won't really know how your members use the space and what needs tweaking. Because of this, monitoring use is essential for improvements.

"Observe how things are working and how people are using the space well and do things to pave the cowpaths," suggests McCarthy.

"For example, people were often uncomfortable making phone calls in a communal space so would either go [outside], do them in corridors, etc. So observing this and putting soft furniture in spaces where they go and assigning a small room for private calls just improved the environment for the caller and made it less disruptive for the other co-workers."

6. Encourage Engagement

Encourage engagement with the space, whether that's options for personalization, the sharing out of small chores or even fun stuff like playlist collaboration.

"Let people make the place their own. People often sit at the same desk, encourage them to make that desk their own whether it be with family photos, leaving their monitor there or having a post tray, every little bit helps make people feel that the coworking space is as much theirs as anyone else's," says Charlesworth.

Indycube's Kev Moss recommends involving members by delegating small tasks that benefit the larger collective: "Get people involved in the decisions and running so it's their space too, not somewhere they just come. This could be as simple as asking if someone could buy some coffee on the way to work."

And Tristan Phillips, also at Indycube, suggests upping the engagement by offering a democratic music policy.

"If you have music on in the background, ask the coworkers if they're happy with the station you've chosen or the music type," Phillips suggests. "Mix it up a bit and play a variety of music and encourage others to pick a station or share their play lists."

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